vccfandomcom-20200214-history
Antlion (Evolution)
The antlion, a disposable enemy that haunts the player during the Coast chapters, and later the Combine soldiers during the Nova Prospekt chapters, experienced a surprising deal of evolution, although without major visible changes to the overall design. Version 0: Pre-Birther There is some indication of what the antlion was before the already final-style Birther model: RTB briefly discusses the early forms of the antlions, including a few concepts on the same page: The Antlions were some of the first creatures to be created and went through many augmentations and additions over the course of the project. They were heavily armored to begin with, but tearing them to bits with bullets was just too much fun, so we turned them into cannon fodder. RTB Uncorrected Proof includes a set of stories made at the beginning of Half-Life 2's development, which includes a rough description for antlions, mentioning them having 6 legs: Despite its size, it touched the ground quite lightly, even delicately, on six wicked legs. It looked like an enormous insect, striped in virulent colors like a wasp, with its glossy elytra flaring up defensively. Its hind wings formed a crystal blur as it leapt with scissoring mandibles at Gordon's throat. There are two miscellaneous VMTs present in the antlion's folder. They are most likely earlier textures for the antlions' gibs, since there is no evidence of any other early textures for the antlion. "aliengeneric3.vmt" "M9CL.vmt" Gallery Misc Textures Textures named identically to the VMTs in other folders. It is unknown if these were the ones referenced. aliengeneric3.png|"aliengeneric3.vmt"; imported from HL1ports M9CL.png|"M9CL.vmt"; appears to be a renamed "aliengeneric1" from HL1ports and imported from the fast headcrab folder Concepts antlion1.jpg antlion2.jpg antlion3.jpg Version 1: Birther / Pel Release Antlion Before the placement of the antlion's textures into a (rough) composite sheet, the model without animations was copied into a separate model named "Birther.mdl" in the Leak's base directory. While the UVs are different from the current Leak antlion, the mesh is identical to the Leak version. It should be noted that the Birther model may have been used with either the Pel / Leak textures, since the UVs are identical. During the Facepunch leaks, Pelpix released the older textures for this version. They are much more reddish and noticeably rougher, quality-wiseFor example, the pencil scribbles used on case.vtf in order to create the semi-black areas, or the same technique for the bright orange areas.. This antlion also appears in a few miscellaneous files: *In Derek Jenson's portfolio, it appears as part of a video showing his rigs for non-human creatures. *On Valve's XSI tutorial, a slide showing the process of making models, periodically shown throughout the series, includes a picture of this version's model. Trivia *Pelpix first released the thumbnails (256x) for the textures, and then shortly after corrected it to be the full-res versions. *Both "abdomen.vtf" and "caseback.vtf" are larger than their Leak counterparts, respectively 512x to 256x and 256 to 128x. Gallery Renders antlion_2_02.png Antlion 2 00.png antlion_2_01.png Antlion 2 04.png Textures abdomen.png|"abdomen.vtf" Antlion parts 00 00 00.png|"antlion_parts.vtf" Case.png|"case.vtf" Caseback.png|"caseback.vtf" Screenshots antlions.jpg Other Appearances Derekportfolio antlion.png|Derek Portfolio ApplicationFrameHost_2018-09-15_13-44-53.png|XSI Tutorial Version 2: Leak Antlion The antlion present in the leak has a large degree of difference from the final, but surprisingly little from the Birther model. Compared to the final, it is UVed differentlyAlthough not particularly differently, since it just uses a sheet which contains all of the non-sheeted textures unmodified, with a different and slightly higher-poly model, for example having legs that end in single vertices, rather than in the final in small stumps. Trivia *The sheet is slightly misaligned; the "antlion_parts" portion is one pixel up, which creates a gap between it and the other parts that is also visible. Gallery Renders antlion_4_02.png antlion_4_00.png antlion_4_01.png antlion_4_04.png Textures abdomen_3.png|"abdomen.vtf" antlion_parts.png|"antlion_parts.vtf" case_3.png|"case.vtf" caseback_3.png|"caseback.vtf" v2_antlion_sheet.png|"antlion_sheet.vtf" Version 3: Shader Antlion An intermediate antlion that makes an appearance in the early-2004 slideshow D3DTutorial10_Half-Life2_Shading. In the images shown, it uses the Leak antlion textures, with a rather exaggerated normal map on top. The model is largely similar to the Leak version, retaining the sharp legs. Gallery Screenshots antlion_cave1.png antlion_cave2.png antlions2.png Version 4: Final Antlion The antlion that appears in the final version of Half-Life 2. It implements an interesting skin-changing functionality, with 4 different skins, and downscales the texture sheet from 512x1024 to 512x512. This version retains the Leak antlion's gibs, keeping a downscaled version of "antlion_parts.vtf" in order to texture them. Gallery Renders antlion_f_02.png antlion_f_03.png antlion_f_01.png antlion_f_04.png Textures antlionhigh_sheet.png antlionhigh_sheet2.png antlionhigh_sheet3.png antlionhigh_sheet4.png Screenshots antlion_flashlight_exposure.jpg old_light.jpg coast_revolver.jpg Version 5: Placeholder Worker Briefly appearing in the first teaser for Episode 2, it appears to be either an early version of the Antlion worker, or an unused skin for the standard antlions within the caves. It is much more similar to the antlion grub's appearance than the final, with a brown head and glowing mass at the end of the abdomen. However, it behaves identically to the normal antlion, aggressively rushing the vortigaunt before being stunned by his circular blast. The main difference between the regular Antlion and the Placeholder Worker was that the Workers would explode into a shower of acid like they do in the final game, acting as some sort of 'bomber' and would have been dealt with at range. Gallery Screenshots chrome_2018-09-15_12-15-20.png chrome_2018-09-15_12-15-51.png 2018-09-15_12-15-40.png Comparisons Earlier Antlion Textures abdomen.png|"abdomen.vtf" Abdomen 3.png|"abdomen.vtf" antlion_parts.png|"antlion_parts.vtf" Antlion parts 00 00 00.png|"antlion_parts.vtf" case_3.png|"case.vtf" Case.png|"case.vtf" caseback_3.png|"caseback.vtf" Caseback.png|"caseback.vtf" Final Antlion Sheets antlionhigh_sheet.png|"antlionhigh_sheet.vtf" antlionhigh_sheet2.png|"antlionhigh_sheet2.vtf" antlionhigh_sheet3.png|"antlionhigh_sheet3.vtf" antlionhigh_sheet4.png|"antlionhigh_sheet4.vtf" References Category:Half-Life 2 Category:Enemies Category:Evolution Category:2003 Leaks Category:2016 Leaks Category:Recommended Reads